Thanks to the Lincoln Center Festival and the Park Avenue Armory, we got to see five productions by the Royal Shakespeare Company this summer. The mini-season wraps up on Sunday with “The Winter’s Tale” (my least favorite show) at 1:30pm and “As You Like It” (my favorite one) at 7:30pm. What’s been particularly fascinating to me is the range of reaction from local wags. A recurring quibble is that the productions are overly conservative. True, they aren’t experimental by any stretch of the imagination — for most, modern dress and modern props like iPods and guns is as far as it goes. And none of them matches the all-male Propeller productions — not totally radical but certainly daring — we’ve seen at BAM. Mostly, the RSC shows are elegant and performed with zest. You can’t underestimate the power of a Shakespeare that unfurls with utmost clarity. So yes, nothing groundbreaking, but many illuminating insights and flashes of real brilliance. (And it’s hard to underestimate the intrinsic power of the setting: a life-size replica of the RSC’s Startford-upon-Avon theater within the Armory’s Drill Hall.)

Still, it’s interesting to note that the RSC seems to have sent some of its most straightforward productions. Nothing like Sulayman Al-Bassam’s “Richard III: An Arab Tragedy” (which played BAM a couple of years ago) or Rupert Goold’s current “The Merchant of Venice,” set in a contemporary Las Vegas where Launcelot Gobbo is an Elvis impersonator and Portia a TV game-show host.

Back to the New York reception. What baffles me is that some of the same nitpickers praised to high heaven mediocre home-grown productions like Michael Grandage’s dull “King Lear,” Arin Arbus’ idea-deprived “Othello” or Fiasco Theater amateurish “Cymbeline.” This is befuddling.

Plus, every time a director eschews conservatism and really takes a whack at Shakespeare, too many people batten down the hatches and throw about accusations of heresy. Cue the frosty reception for Jan Lauwers’ chaotically violent “King Lear.”

So, how much are we willing to take — or settle for — when it comes to Shakespeare? The debate is certain to flare again in October when the Public presents “King Lear” with actors as disparate as Sam Waterston as the monarch, Arian Moayed as Edgar and Kelli O’Hara as Regan.